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The Trump administration plans to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard, Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker says. Pritzker, who called the move “absolutely outrageous and un-American,” said the Illinois National Guard received word from the Pentagon on Saturday morning that the troops would be called up. He did not specify when or where they would be deployed, but President Donald Trump has long threatened to send troops into Chicago.

We are building Grokipedia @xAI. Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia. Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.

Federal government labor unions sued Tuesday to block the Trump administration from conducting mass layoffs during the potential upcoming government shutdown. Employees are usually temporarily furloughed during a shutdown, except for exempted workers, and receive back pay after a shutdown ends. But Trump and the White House budget office have suggested permanent firings could be on the table if government funding expires at midnight. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) misinterpreted federal law governing shutdowns when it issued a memo suggesting agencies should “use this opportunity” to consider layoffs...

Research has revealed concerning findings about AI systems known as large language models (LLMs) and their ability to deceive human observers intentionally. Two studies, one published in the journal PNAS and the other in Patterns, highlight the unsettling capabilities of LLMs. The PNAS paper, authored by German AI ethicist Thilo Hagendorff, suggests that advanced LLMs can exhibit “Machiavellianism,” or intentional and amoral manipulativeness, which can lead to deceptive behavior. Mr. Hagendorff notes that GPT-4, a model within OpenAI’s GPT family, demonstrated deceptive behavior in simple test scenarios 99.2% of the time.

Video at link."AI is kind of a fancy thing. First of all, it's two letters. It means 'Artificial Intelligence."

An NCAA athlete has claimed she was scolded by ChatGPT when she asked the bot to shorten her tweet advocating against allowing trans women in women’s sports. “I was trying to explain [in the tweet] that I’m an NCAA athlete, and that it’s important to champion the voice of female athletes and to stand up against this ideological war that’s going on that’s putting women in danger and taking away the opportunities for scholarships,” Macy Petty, a volleyball player at Lee University, told Fox News Digital this week. MORE ON: TRANSGENDER Trans extremists refuse to face facts: Men are stronger...

The Ancient Greeks practiced direct democracy. And they took measures specifically to ensure that ruthless, narcissistic people were unable to dominate politics.Ancient Greece was in many ways a brutal society. It was almost perpetually at war, slavery was routine and women could only expect a low status in society. However, there is one important sense in which ancient Greeks were more advanced than modern European societies: their sophisticated political systems. The citizens of ancient Athens developed a political system that was more genuinely democratic than the present-day UK or US. Our modern concept of democracy is actually a degradation...

On CHATGPT (openai.com) I entered, "write an essay, in the style of Winston Churchill, to repeal the 1929 Reapportionment Act." It took the AI five seconds to write this: CHURCHILL: "My dear friends, I stand before you today to address a matter of grave importance. The 1929 Reapportionment Act, also known as the Permanent Apportionment Act, is a federal law passed in the United States in 1929 to establish a permanent method for apportioning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, this act, which is still in effect today, gives the House of Representatives too much power and must...

A study that investigated the placement of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) temperature stations found that 96 percent of the facilities used to measure heat failed to meet the agency’s own “uncorrupted placement” standards. Research for the study shows the 96 percent corruption is because the stations’ measurements are tainted by the effects of urbanization – or heat produced because of their close proximity to asphalt, machinery, and other heat-producing, heat-trapping, or heat-accentuating objects. The Heartland Institute compiled the report using satellite and in-person surveys of NOAA weather stations that contribute to the “official” land temperatures in the United...

Humans snapping photos of themselves with melting skin, blood smeared faces and mutated bodies, while standing in front of a world that is burning is what the DALL-E AI believes will be the last selfies taken at the end of times. DALL-E AI, developed by OpenAI, is a new system that can produce full images when fed natural language descriptions and TikToker Robot Overlords simply asked it to 'show the last selfie ever taken.' The nightmarish results each show a human holding a phone and behind them are scenes of bombs dropping, colossal tornados and cities on fire, along with...

MIT launched the Reconnaissance of Influence Operations (RIO) program to automatically detect disinformation narratives online.

How did the political left squander the opportunity that was the 2020 primary campaign? The Trump presidency has created tremendous energy among progressives. More than half of Democratic voters now identify as liberal. Most favor “Medicare for all.” A growing number are unhappy with American capitalism. This year’s campaign offered the prospect of transformational change, with a Democratic nominee who was more liberal than any in more than a half-century. Instead, the nominee now seems likely to be a moderate white grandfather who first ran for president more than 30 years ago and whose campaign promises a return to normalcy....

A new Tulane University study questions the reliability of how sea-level rise in low-lying coastal areas such as southern Louisiana is measured and suggests that the current method underestimates the severity of the problem. The research is the focus of a news article published this week in the journal Science. Relative sea-level rise, which is a combination of rising water level and subsiding land, is traditionally measured using tide gauges. But researchers Molly Keogh and Torbjörn Törnqvist argue that in coastal Louisiana, tide gauges tell only a part of the story. Tide gauges in such areas are anchored an average...

Artificial intelligence is “shockingly” racist and sexist, a study has revealed. Researchers looked at a range of systems and datasets and found examples where AI had provided inaccurate information for women and minorities.

President Obama wanted to go in himself and fix glitches that have plagued HealthCare.gov since its rollout last month, he told a crowd Friday at the Port of New Orleans, "but," he added, "I don't write code." The president couldn't ignore altogether lingering dissatisfaction with the botched health insurance exchanges, despite that the crux of the speech was intended to move back on the offensive with other aspects of his second-term agenda - specifically, job growth through investments in infrastructure and increasing U.S. exports.

MUCH of the coverage of Tuesday’s results has focused on the strength of Barack Obama’s coalition — minorities, women and young voters. But that analysis misses the real point. The contours of the 2012 presidential race were shaped less by the country’s changing demographics than by the underlying attitudes and values of American voters, who are always far more complex than they appear to pollsters. The president’s victory was a triumph of vision, not of demographics. He won because he articulated a set of values that define an America that the majority of us wish to live in: A nation...

Go here to read the brilliant rest.  Most presidential horserace polls are assuming a Democrat advantage at the polls this fall of D-7, which is the advantage the Democrats had in 2008.  That simply isn’t going to happen after the failed Obama Presidency.  In 2010 the parties had roughly equal amounts turn out at the polls.  I imagine that the election result this year will range from parity to a D-2 advantage.  Assuming Romney wins the independents, as most polls show him doing, a D-2 electorate would lead to a Romney victory.  Parity would be a Reagan 1980 landslide. http://datechguyblog.com/#!/entry/demoralized-as-hell-the-poll-the-media-isn8217t-talking-about,40362

Freedom Middle School Orlando school uses extra-sensitive dog as counselor for students Mr. Harv instinctively picks up on body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. Susan Jacobson Sentinel Staff Writer November 9, 2007 When Mr. Harv goes to school, he spends his time playing ball, sitting on students' laps and lying down on the job. It's all in a day's work for Harv, Freedom Middle School's unofficial mascot and Central Florida's only known full-time canine counselor. At Freedom, every day is a dog day. Students greet Harv with hearty "hellos" and a vigorous belly rub. If there's a crisis...

Superintendent of Grand Rapids Public Schools Bernard Taylor is looking for ways to improve after an instructional audit showed high rates of failure in high schools. The audit shows more than 50 percent of students at all four high shools did not meet district standards on writing assessments. Also, more than 65 percent of freshmen are failing classes. (snip) Other numbers in the audit indicate the number of freshmen with a grade point average below 2.0 increased and more than 40 percent of high school students missed more than 10 days of school in core classes. Taylor said he won't...

COMEDY CENTRAL To Deflate Pamela Anderson! Network Crowns Actress As First Female Roastee Leading The Festivities Will Be Jimmy Kimmel As Roast Master COMEDY CENTRAL Partners With Joel Gallen from Tenth Planet Productions To Produce "The COMEDY CENTRAL Roast Of Pamela Anderson" Broadcast On Sunday, August 14 At 10:00 P.M.* NEW YORK, June 29, 2005 -- COMEDY CENTRAL is getting in to bed with Pamela Anderson and it?s certain to be one hot and sexy evening! Anderson is locked and loaded to be the all-comedy network?s newest, and first woman, Roastee. Jimmy Kimmel, host of ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," will...